"Explosive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I have compared it, essentially true. There are some discrepancies in detail, but nothing that matters. The murder of M. Odent, of the other hostages, of the civilians placed in front of the German troops, and of four or five other victims; the burning out by torch and explosive of half a flourishing town, because of a discreditable mistake, the fruit of panic and passion,—these crimes are indelibly marked on the record of Germany. She has done worse elsewhere. All the same, this too she will never efface. Let us imagine such things happening ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which would become unstable as the energy drained away. Now in a system of electrons, electromagnetic radiation would result in a loss of energy, and at one point of instability we might well have a sudden spontaneous redistribution of the constituents, taking place with an explosive violence, and accompanied by the ejection of a corpuscle as a beta-ray, or of a large fragment of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... visits to Ledsam Street, getting into the premises, and taking samples for examination; and on the morning named Whitehead's game was over, though not before he had been watched in sending off two lots of the dangerously explosive stuff to London. There was, however, no less than 200lbs weight found still on the premises. The men who carried it to London were quickly caught with the dynamite in their possession, and with Whitehead were brought ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... all powder or explosive materials not in the magazines, must be taken in charge by the Quarter-Gunners and placed in the safest positions, ready to ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... King. "I thought them as united amongst themselves as they are in my heart. Vermandois is quick, and as explosive as saltpetre; but he has the best nature in the world. I will reconcile them; they ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... wreaths and depths of smoke, and the explosive look of the flash on the right, are, however, very wonderful and peculiarly Turneresque; the sky is also beautiful in form, and the foreground, in which we find his old regard for washerwomen has not quite deserted him, singularly skillful. ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... fired proved their destructive effect on the opposing trenches. The Turkish weapon was known as the "broomstick bomb" and was also propelled from a mortar. It consisted of a 4-inch cartridge case filled with a high explosive and also containing metal such as boiler punchings, nails, etc. (in one case gramophone needles were discovered), and provided with a percussion cap. It was fitted to a stick about two inches thick and five ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... German government has a terrific explosive, which is being held in reserve to the last.... It is said that a bomb weighing scarcely ten kilometres can annihilate everything within a radius of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... cordillera, on the contrary, although much of the present form of the land is due to erosion, a vast amount is due directly to so-called "tectonic" activities such as the breaking of the crust, the pouring out of molten lavas, and the bursting forth of explosive eruptions. ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... cause, but afterwards found out our mistake. An S.O.S. went up after dark, and, at the time of firing No. 3 gun, the layer and another gunner were both badly hit by what appeared to be a "premature" just outside the bore of the piece. Throughout this period we were firing nothing but high explosive shells. Great therefore was our surprise when, three weeks later, letters arrived from both men, who were in hospital, to say that in each case shrapnel bullets had been extracted from them! What had actually occurred was this: At the ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... before the Chemical Section of the British Association some experiments, in which a well-dried mixture of carbonic oxide and oxygen was submitted to electric sparks without exploding.[1] It was further shown that the introduction of a very minute quantity of aqueous vapor into the non-explosive mixture was sufficient to cause explosive combination between the gases when the spark was passed. The hypothesis advanced to account for the observed facts was that carbonic oxide does not unite directly with oxygen at a high temperature, but only indirectly through the intervention ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... protect the canal against such an attack we need guns that can shoot farther, straighter and more powerfully than any at present in use, and we've got to have the most powerful explosive. In other words, we've got to beat the biggest guns that are now in existence. And I'm going ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... the most explosive and crusty person that ever happened in Glendale, and it takes all of Aunt Augusta's energy, common-sense and force of character to keep him and the two chips he carries on his shoulders, as a defiance to the world in general, from being in a constant state of combustion. He has ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... about eighteen feet high, and with a clumsy jump and a tremendous splash vanished in the water. As the flesh of the hippopotamus, which is said to resemble pork in flavor, was much desired as food by the soldiers under Baker's charge, he had a small explosive shell constructed, which, fired into the creature's brain, seldom failed to leave its huge body floating dead on the surface ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 30th of November, Neb, strolling on the beach, had not found a piece of a thick iron cylinder, bearing traces of explosion. The edges of this cylinder were twisted and broken, as if they had been subjected to the action of some explosive substance. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... note which rose in pitch to a yell as the gust hurled itself through the cordage; each sea that came down seemed likely to be the last, but the sturdy yacht—no floating chisel was she—ran up the steep with a long, slow glide, and smashed into the black hollow with a sharp explosive sound. Marion Dearsley might have been pardoned had she shown tremors as the flying mountains towered over the vessel. Once a great black wall heaved up and doubled the intensity of the murky midnight by a sinister shade; there ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... with considerable curiosity, as he let off these little explosive sentences, and withdrew his eyes with an unsatisfied look, ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... his district, saw in these solitary men on the mountain side, blackened by the sun and smoke, with naked breasts and bare arms, a species of priests dedicated to the service of a fatal divinity that was receiving from their hands offerings of enormous explosive capsules, hurling them ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose it was very fine to go whirling through the air ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... he shouted, as they neared the bank above the danger spot. He was a few yards in advance of Jack's father and "Old Mack." Then suddenly he stood stock still, gave vent to a long, explosive whistle, and yelled, "Well, I'll be gin-busted! Look a' there, boys!" And following his astounded gaze, they saw, on the brink of the river, an old grey horse, with down-hanging head, his back to the gale, and about his neck a ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... some new sort of explosive they're experimenting with," added the patrol leader seriously; "and to look at that gap you'd believe it beats dynamite all hollow. Drop a bomb made of that stuff on a fort, and goodby ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... howitzers, and four 3.7-inch howitzers, while eight 60-pounders, eight 6-inch howitzers, and four 4.5-inch howitzers were employed in counter battery work. The absence of wind placed us at a heavy disadvantage. The high explosive shells bursting about the crest of 1070 raised enormous clouds of dust which obscured everything, and after a short while even the flames of exploding shells were entirely hidden from view. The gunners had to stop firing for three-quarters of an hour to allow the dust to settle. They ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... dedicated to warlike purposes? I am sick at heart when I hear the first question put in these days to each inventor: 'Can you enable us to kill more of our fellowmen than we can kill with existing appliances?' Is it a new engine, a new amalgam of metals, a new explosive, a new field of electrical energy, one hears the same vulture's cry— 'How many, how far, how safely can we slay?' I regard this lust for destruction as contemptible. It is a strange and ignominious feature of modern life. Forgive me, Mr. Theydon, if I speak strongly on this matter. The men who ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... barely turning over, you can hear everything. So I went slow and listened. Through the air came the sharp "woop-wing" of shrapnel bursting towards you, the most devilish sound of all. Some prefer the shriek of shrapnel to the dolorous wail and deep thunderous crash of high explosive. But nothing frightens me so much as ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... in flow following the explosion of large shots in a sand rock may be due not only to fissuring of the rock, but to temporary reversal of the pressure, the force of the explosive tending to drive the oil back for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... the vindictive crash of "75's," the deep-toned bellowing of "heavies," or, nearer by—had they been in action—the banging of trench mortars. In the sky he could have told from white or greenish-orange flashes, from lace-like wreaths or fixed-star blasts, where shrapnel or high explosive shells had burst; from the ringing of a gas gong he could tell where "green cross" shells were falling; he could, and gladly would, have explained—to his own satisfaction, at least—the many freak phenomena: a solitary light ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... in war—soldiers wasted with disease, blasted in arm and leg with explosive shell, withered in eye and lung by the terrible gas; but none of these things is so moving as the sight of little children, homeless, parentless, and with clothing worn and torn by travel, sleeping in empty freight cars, cold railway stations, or on the very blizzard-swept sidewalks ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... their under-bodies black spheres were dropping in steady streams. Allan knew then whence came the crash that had rocked his ship as she rose. These were bombs, huge bombs, charged with heaven alone knew what Earth-shaking explosive. They were catapulting down, an iron death hail, on the fleet and the city ...
— When the Sleepers Woke • Arthur Leo Zagat
... dining-room they met three other officers of lower rank—a lieutenant, Otto von Grossling, and two sub-lieutenants, Fritz Scheuneberg and Baron von Eyrick, a very short, fair-haired man, who was proud and brutal toward men, harsh toward prisoners and as explosive as gunpowder. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... one day, if he believed he could make gold. He looked at me with his frightful grin, and said, "Yes, and diamonds too, with time and money to help me." He not only believes in The Philosopher's Stone; he says he is on the trace of some explosive compound so terrifically destructive in its effect, that it will make war impossible. He declares that he will annihilate time and space by means of electricity; and that he will develop steam as a motive power, until travelers can rush over the whole ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... Broglio in hand; has a scene with Broglio; which, to readers that study it, may be symbolical of much that is gone and that is coming. It fell "about the middle of May" (prior to May 17th, as readers will guess before long); and here, according to report, was the somewhat explosive finale it had. Prince Conti, the same who ran to join Maillebois, and has proved a gallant fellow and got command of a Division, attends Broglio in this important ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... it the momentous import of the confession fell with explosive relief on the go, as if the relief were great to ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... concerning the patient, she let the doctor take his leave. Then she stood looking at the outside of Lord Dymchurch's letter, and wondering what might be its contents. Beyond a doubt, they were of an explosive nature. Whatever his excuse, Lord Dymchurch's abrupt departure would enrage Lady Ogram. Had he been refused by May? Or had something come to pass which made it impossible for him to offer marriage something connected with Lashmar's early ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... moonlight, wondering how thoroughly he was lost and how much farther it was to Debbleby's. Then, at a sudden sharp turn in the canyon bridle-path, he had stumbled upon the camp-fire, had heard an explosive "Hands up!" and had found himself confronted by three men, with one of the three covering him with a sawed-off Winchester. From that to the unhorsing and the binding had been merely a rough-and-tumble half-minute, ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... The exclamation was explosive enough to catch the ear of an extremely pretty young woman who stood near by with her hands in her pockets. She wore a Burberry raglan and an entirely untrimmed soft felt hat, and she came over unceremoniously and joined ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... "Oh, yes. My explosive mud ball!" assented Cleo. "But this is different. Ugh! I shall never, never brag of clean hands again after this. There, my fish is tied on the sinker; now what ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... by the mind to some group of objects. It was completely suppressed but it left an abnormal tension in the central system. If now a chance experience touches on this group of ideas, there results an explosive reaction; and movements, convulsions, spasms, obsessions, and fears set in which get their particular character not through the secondary intrusion but from the primary desire. To discharge that intrusion leads therefore only to the elimination of those symptoms which resulted from it, but the ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... Place Pigalle and the Avenue de Clichy on moonless nights. Poor devils of misery! They did but make war on the well-to-do, and with less deadly methods, as a rule, than those encouraged in greater wars when, for trade interests also, men kill each other with explosive bombs and wrap each other's bowels round their bayonets and blow up whole companies of men in trenches which have been sapped so skilfully that at the word "Fire!" no pair of arms or legs remains to a single body and God Himself would ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... as soon as they are ripe. One of the blessings of having an open garden is, that I do not have to watch my fruit: a dozen youngsters do that, and let it waste no time after it matures. I wish it were possible to grow a variety of grape like the explosive bullets, that should explode in the stomach: the vine would make such a nice border for the garden,—a masked battery of grape. The pears, too, are getting russet and heavy; and here and there amid the shining ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hatchet he had brought with him at his girdle, flung over one of the barrels on its side, knocked in the head of it, allowing the dull black powder to pour on the cobblestones. Then filling his hat with the explosive, he came out towards us, leaving a thick trail behind him. By this time we were sorely beset, and one of our men had gone down under the fire of the enemy, who shot wildly, being baffled by the darkness, otherwise all of us had been slaughtered. I seized a musket ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... his opportunity. Doubling nimbly like a wild boar, he dashed in and caught his colossal opponent fairly on the side, midway between the shoulder and the haunch. The impact shocked the breath from the monster's lungs, with a huge, explosive cough, and brought him to a bewildered standstill, though it could not throw him from his feet. But the armored hide proved too tough for the black beast's horns to penetrate. Perceiving this on the instant, the latter reared, and brought down the two ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of drays, some hermetically sealed with the prudence that explosive material requires, others with bundles and boxes that were sending out a stale odor of provisions. Then came great herds of cattle raising thick, whirling clouds of dust in the narrow parts of the road, prodded on by the sticks and yells of the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and, suddenly, amid a thunderous roar, the ceiling and walls began falling. Some highly explosive chemical had been stored ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... and stamped her pretty feet, and said various explosive things under her breath, and not so far under but that they could be heard pretty well, but all this did not avail to make the saddle smaller or the new horse bigger; so at last she was obliged to mount White Eagle, and to have the mortification of seeing Peggy vault lightly on ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... on the first day of the fire Mayor Schmitz sent a tug to Pinole for several cans of the explosive. He also sent a telegram to Mayor Mott of Oakland. He received this reply to his Oakland message: "Three engines and hose companies leave here immediately. Will forward dynamite as ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... explosive, intensive, had strained the limits of her vituperation. If that would not stir these men, what could? Tommy's neck ran red again, but he kept his tongue between his teeth. Dick's eyes mellowed. He had the advantage over Tommy, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... without entangling the superstructure. Some nets are towed by surface vessels. The process is necessarily slow, and to be effective the surface vessel must know the exact location of the submersible. Towing torpedoes or high explosive charges behind moving vessels has been developed by the Italian Navy, but the chances of hitting a submersible with such devices ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... third-rate music-hall artiste—the young man, be it said, was making a special study of oratorio—and that it was profanation, for any one with so incalculably little idea of the very first principles of art to attempt to interpret the works of the great masters, together with much more of a like explosive character. Finally, he dismissed him abruptly ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... developed form of anger, which, he describes as an excitement caused by pain, reaching the centres of activity, and containing an impulse knowingly to inflict suffering on another sentient being. Here, if man only is meant, the spark is perhaps accounted for, but not the barrel of gunpowder. The explosive material is, however, found in the breast of nearly every living creature. The bull—ranking high according to Bain, though I myself should place him nearly on a level mentally with the majority of the lower animals, both vertebrate and insect—is capable of a wrath ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... gave an explosive sigh, "but it's an awful relief not to have that secret to pack around any longer, and to feel that I've got somebody ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... become a sensation. Every Northern Congressman has read it. A half million copies have been printed and the presses can't keep up with the demands. This book is storing powder in the souls of the masses who don't know how to think, because they've never been trained to think. This explosive emotion is the preparation for fanaticism. We only wait the coming of the fanatic—the madman who may lift a torch and hurl it into this magazine. The South is asleep. And when we don't sleep, we dance. There's no use fooling ourselves. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... Presently I heard a faint explosion at the bottom of the cavity, when the peeping girl jerked her head quickly back, with the exclamation, "Why, it spit at me!" The trick of the bird on such occasions is apparently to draw in its breath till its form perceptibly swells, and then give forth a quick, explosive sound like an escaping jet of steam. One involuntarily closes his eyes and jerks back his head. The girls, to their great amusement, provoked the bird into this pretty outburst of her impatience two or three times. But as the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... coldness a condensation of the vapour there existing, or a vacuum, and thus occasion parts of the earth's crust or shell to be forced down by the pressure of the incumbent atmosphere. Afterwards the water being suddenly raised into steam produces all the explosive effects of earthquakes. And by new accessions of water during the intervals of the explosions the repetition of the shocks is caused. These circumstances were hourly illustrated by the fountains of boiling water in Iceland, in which the surface ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... and are blown about by the wind. What other plants can you find whose seeds are scattered in the same way? Can you discover a plant whose seeds are carried by water? The Witch-hazel shoots its seeds. What other plants can you find that have explosive fruits? Cherry-seeds are carried by birds. Mention some other seeds that are carried in this way. It would take very little observation to learn how Burdock-burs, Cockle-burs, Stick-tights, Beggar-lice, Spanish-needles, and such hooked fruits ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... oranges and crisp uncompromising biscuits, that made an explosive noise like the breaking of windows whenever any one ventured to tamper with them; item, a decanter of sherry in a silver stand; item, a decanter of port, which Mr. Sheldon declared to be something almost too good to be drunk, and to the merits of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... of the robing, for the maid, as her mistress managed to hint, was too steeped 'in the colour of the occasion' to be exactly tasteful, and had the art, no doubt through sympathy, of charging permissible common words with explosive meanings:—she was in an amorous palpitation, of the reflected state. After several knockings and enterings of the bedchamber-door, she came hurriedly to say: 'And your pillow, ma'am? I had almost forgotten it!' A question that caused her mistress to drop the gaze of a moan on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... where dynamite explosions have occurred, but I know of nothing to compare with this. I am sure that if dynamite has been used, or any explosive now generally obtainable, there would have been left, at least, some remnant of the safe. Hasn't this pile of rubbish ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... not once look round as he went on his explosive way to the gulch, but Roy Beaudry crouched lower behind the cactus until the man had disappeared. Then he crawled back to the grove, slipped through it, and crept to the shelter of the ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... streets should be so noisy. All the bells and gongs and danger-signals, one would think, would be equally effectual if they were not so loud, but now the competition of sounds is so great that any warning must almost be explosive in its violence to be audible at all. It is no wonder that we find in this city so many people suffering from nerves; it is quite surprising the number of men I have met who dare not drink coffee, men who have had to give up smoking, men and women who were too nervous to travel in a hansom, ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... shot with every size of rifle from a half pounder explosive shell, and I do not think any larger bore is actually necessary than a No. 8, with a charge of 12 or 14 drams of powder. Such a rifle should weigh 15 lbs., and the projectile would weigh ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Company. The English in those regions were not slow to avail themselves of the advantage. The Portuguese of Tydor received from neutral sympathy a copious supply of powder and of pamphlets. The one explosive material enabled them to make a more effective defence of their citadel against the Dutch fleet; the other revealed to the Portuguese and their Mussulman allies that "the Netherlanders could not exist without ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... guncotton, are also ignited by the electric spark from an induction coil or the incandescence of a wire. Figure 97 shows the interior of an ordinary electric fuse for blasting or exploding underground mines. It consists of a box of wood or metal primed with gunpowder or other explosive, and a platinum wire P soldered to a pair of stout copper wires W, insulated with gutta-percha. When the current is sent along these wires, the platinum glows and ignites the explosive. Detonating fuses are primed with ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... one another a moment and then began laughing. Arthur seemed crestfallen, while Uncle John handled his small box as gingerly as if he suspected it contained an explosive. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... whom a moment had made one were becoming calmer, and taking one another's hands for life, when a diabolical sound arose—and what was it but Sandy Liston, who, after furious resistance, was blubbering with explosive but short-lived violence? Having done it, he was the first to draw everybody's attention to the phenomenon; and affecting to consider it a purely physical attack, like a coup de soleil, or so on, he proceeded instantly to Drysel's ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... invention by Gottlieb Daimler of the high-speed gasoline engine, in 1885, that really gave an impetus to the building of efficient automobiles of all powers. The success of his explosive gasoline engine, forerunner of all succeeding gasoline motor-car engines, was the incentive to inventors to perfect the steam-engine for ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... provinces were at war with each other. Before that, in each province, cities fought together. Now that national unity has been reached, a larger unity develops. It is certainly regrettable that it should take place by violence, but that is the natural method. Of the explosive mixture of conflicting elements in conflict, a new chemical body will be born. Will it be in the East, or in Europe? I cannot tell; but surely what results will have new properties, more valuable than its parts. The end is not yet. The war of which we are now witnesses is ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Bigelow, a worthy second to such a chief. Bryant was held to be a cold man, not only in his poetry, but in his personal relations; but I think that, so far as his personality was concerned, this was a mistake. He impressed me as a man of strong feelings, who had at some time been led by a too explosive expression of them to dread his own passions, and who had, therefore, cultivated a repression which became the habit of his life. The character of his poetry, little sympathetic with human passion, and given to the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... mental creatures, and with the explosive and mechanistic aid of ideas we can pervert the whole psyche. Only, however, in a destructive degree, not in a positive ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... weapon, deadly weapon; armament, armaments, armature; panoply, stand of arms; armor &c. (defense) 717; armory &c. (store) 636; apparatus belli[Lat]. ammunition; powder, powder and shot; cartridge; ball cartridge, cartouche, fireball; "villainous saltpeter" [Hen. IV]; dumdum bullet. explosive; gunpowder, guncotton; mercury fulminate; picrates; pentaerythritol tetranitrate[ISA:chemsub][Chemsub], PETN. high explosive; trinitrotoluene, TNT; dynamite, melinite[obs3], cordite, lyddite, plastic explosive, plastique; pyroxyline[obs3]. [knives and swords: list] sword, saber, broadsword, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... concealed in her bosom. Of course I knew what that meant. Her father, true to his promise, began to urge Ferrau's suit, saying that he had forgiven him for having killed Medoro. But Angelica had not forgiven him, and moreover she hated Ferrau with his bloodshot eyes and his explosive manners. She made a long speech, admirably delivered by the cobbler and as full of noble sentiments as a poem by Mrs. Browning, then, suddenly drawing her dagger with the string, she stabbed herself and fell dead ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... makes the foam-flecked Eagle Falls. Our road here was blasted through some fiercely solid and hostile rock. One boulder alone that stood in the way weighed (it was estimated by the engineers) from 800 to 1000 tons. Fifty cases of highly explosive powder were suitably placed all around it. Excursion steamers took hundreds of people from all parts of the Lake to see the explosion, and at the proper moment, while everybody held his breath, the fuses were fired, the blasts ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... years old when my uncle presented me with a flint-lock gun. The possession of the "mysterious iron," and the explosive dirt, or "pulverized coal," as it is called, filled me with new thoughts. All the war-songs that I had ever heard from childhood came back to me with their heroes. It seemed as if I were an entirely new being—the ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the winter of 1778 he formed the project of crossing the ice and setting fire to the English squadron. The Delaware not being frozen that year hard enough for his purpose, he invented explosive boats, and he was engaged in constructing them when he received orders to join the Army of the North. (Certified by ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... armed with one of the newest improved magazine rifles. The use of the white powder reduces very much the size of the cartridges; the bullets are also much smaller than they were formerly, but they are each charged with a most deadly and powerful explosive, which tears the body of the victim it strikes to pieces. These small cartridges are stored in the steel stock and barrel of the rifles, which will hold about one hundred of them; and every soldier therefore carries in his hand a weapon almost equal ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... the explosion the harmless-looking cylinder could produce was equivalent to ten thousand tons of TNT, a chemical explosive no longer in actual use but still ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... probably the impetus given to the development of steam by the convenient collocation of coal and water and the need of an engine, that arrested the advance of this parallel inquiry until our own time. Explosive engines, in which gas and petroleum are employed, are now abundant, but for all that we can regard the explosive engine as still in its experimental stages. So far, research in explosives has been directed chiefly to the possibilities of higher and still higher explosives ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... proved a curse to the island. The natives, despite my friend's accident, bought every cartridge from him, singly or in lots, and they then began to enjoy themselves. Every hour of the day for many weeks afterwards the sullen thud of the explosive could be heard from all parts of the lagoon, followed by applauding shouts. Vast numbers of fish were blown to pieces, for no native would ever think of dividing a cartridge into half a dozen portions and using only one at a time; the entire 6-oz. cartridge was used, and sometimes so short ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... great success. I had charcoal, saltpetre, and sulphur ready to my hand,—all obtainable from natural sources close by; but the result of all my efforts (and I tried mixing the ingredients in every conceivable way) was a very coarse kind of powder with practically no explosive force, but which would go off with ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... do not matter, but as soon as I had passed the explosive state I said, "That all comes from altering my style, and if I hadn't Edwardes must have known that it was ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... of Browning's nature were vigorous, and they worked harmoniously together. His senses were keen and alert; his understanding was both penetrating and comprehensive; his passions had sudden explosive force and also steadfastness and persistency; his will supported his other powers and perhaps it had too large a share in his later creative work. His feeling for external nature was twofold; he enjoyed colour and form—but ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... think that any of us would long be able to stand by that plea, 'I am worthy.' Have you ever been on a tour of discovery, like what they go through at the Houses of Parliament on the first day of each session, down into the cellars to see what stores of explosive material, and what villains to fire it, may be lurking there? If you have once seen yourself as you are, and take into account, not only actions but base tendencies, foul, evil thoughts, imagined sins of the flesh, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... but—thunder!—every piece of perrary in this territory's a deadfall. Somebody'll git catched in every one of them air traps. Gee up! G'lang! Git up, won't you? Hey?" And this last sentence was ornamented with another magnificent writing-master flourish of the whip-lash, and emphasized by an explosive crack at the end, which started the four horses off in a swinging gallop, from which Jim did not allow them to settle back into a walk until they had reached the high prairie land in the ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... thousands. He would have to learn that, although London contains tenfold the inflammable matter that it did in 1666; though, not content with filling our rooms with woodwork and light draperies, we must needs lead inflammable and explosive gases into every corner of our streets and houses, we never allow even a street to burn down. And if he asked how this had come about, we should have to explain that the improvement of natural knowledge has furnished us with dozens of machines for throwing water upon fires, ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... bring peace to my soul; songs more sweet than morning, I hear again! My tears spring forth, the earth has won me back." He dropped his head upon his breast and wept. As he sat thus, in tender mood, a strange happening took place. A queer, explosive sound, and a jet of flame, and—there stood the devil, all in red, forked tail, horns, and cloven hoof! He stood smiling wickedly at the softened old man, while Faust stared ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... in sincerity and truth, the iron will rises up and takes possession of the feeble body, the doubting soul shakes off its hesitating weakness, is drawn back upon itself like a strong bow bent double, is compressed and full of a terrible latent power, like the handful of deadly explosive which, buried in the bosom of the rock, will presently shake the mighty cliff to its roots, as no ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... where they were for a few minutes, listening to the firing. For the first time the note of real hand-to-hand fighting came into the battle din. They could hear the crashing volleys of rifle fire, and the explosive crackling of machine guns coming into play for the first time. That was confirmation enough of their guess that a regular assault on the line of forts was ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... there! Of which there is now left next to no remembrance. For Sterling never spoke a word of this affair in after-days, nor was any of the actors much tempted to speak. We can understand too well that here were young fervid hearts in an explosive condition; young rash heads, sanctioned by a man's experienced head. Here at last shall enthusiasm and theory become practice and fact; fiery dreams are at last permitted to realize themselves; and now is the time or never!—How the Coleridge moonshine comported ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... shattered by our artillery preparation as it was when taken in an attack. The wire entanglements were miles in depth, and the great trees by the roadside were mined. This was done by cutting a groove three or four inches broad and of an equal depth and filling it with packages of explosive. I suppose the purpose was to block the road in case of retreat. Only a few of the mines had been ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... a village, literally buried. Holes dug by high explosive shells in the roadway were filled up with fallen masonry. This was a point at which the transports stopped. Beyond this, man was the beast of burden—the thing that with scissors-like precision cut off, ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... demanded is smokelessness, and to accomplish it recourse is had to the high explosive field, mechanically mixing various substances with them to reduce and regulate their rapidity of action. Just now some form of gun-cotton is most in use mixed with nitrate of ammonia, camphor and other articles. The tendency of these mixtures is to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... pestilence, or of a well-regulated earthquake or tornado. And even the few banks that are claimed to be well managed, have no appreciable effect on the system. It is the system that knows no uniformity or security, and never can have, as now organized. That a system so perilous and explosive, should have even partially succeeded is proof only of the intelligence and integrity, generally, of the bank officers and directors, but no recommendation ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... new opportunities at the great centre of Rome; the insurrectionary temper of Jewish society, as indicated by the continual rise of robber leaders, that drew off multitudes into the neighboring deserts; and, universally, the unsettled mind of the Jewish nation. These explosive materials had long been accumulated; they needed only a kindling spark. Heavenly citations to war had long been felt in the insults and aggressions of paganism; there wanted only a leader. And such a ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... life-giving. The history of a Nation becomes fruitful, soul-elevating, great, so soon as it believes. These Arabs, the man Mohammed, and that one century,—is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what seemed black unnoticeable sand; but lo, the sand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Grenada! I said, the Great Man was always as lightning out of Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... the fourth pistol shut and went after the man who'd dropped down behind a desk. He came upon that man, hopelessly panicked, just as his hands closed on a clumsy gun that was supposed to set off a chemical explosive to ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... sensation. I said intensity of perception. You may perceive harmony, proportion, rhythm, intensely. They are things faint and slight in themselves, as physical facts, but they are like the detonator of a bomb: they let loose the explosive. There's the internal factor as well as the external.... I don't know if I express myself clearly. I mean that the point is that vividness of perception is the essential factor of beauty; but, of course, vividness may be created by ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... doubting their words, decided as they were. In fact, carburetted hydrogen is not completely scentless, and the engineer, whose sense of smell was very keen, was astonished that it had not revealed the presence of the explosive gas. At any rate, if the gas had mingled at all with the surrounding air, it could only be in a very small stream. There was no danger of an explosion, and they might without fear open the safety lamp to try the experiment, just as the old ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... Members created anything like the same sensation, even though he was joined a little later by Mr. OSWALD MOSLEY. Lord HENRY has always derived his political opinions rather from his heart than his head, and has lately developed a habit of firing explosive Questions at Ministers from his eyrie behind their backs. They will probably find his frontal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... governess to the children of a Russian Princess, and finding herself in circles that might be described as not only fast but furious. Here we were in a fine atmosphere of intrigue, with spies, and Grand Dukes, and explosive golf balls and I don't know what beside. It is all capital fun; and, though I am afraid the political plots left me unconvinced, the thing is told with such ease and bonhomie that it is saved from banality; even when the amazing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various
... The flamboyant Algerian removed the coffee cups. When we were alone again, I reiterated my explanation. At every stage of my knowledge I was held in the bond of secrecy. Lackaday's sensitive soul dreaded, more than all the concentrated high-explosive bombardment of the whole of the late German Army, the possibility of Lady Auriol knowing him as ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... ineffable comfortableness] My dear Burge: if you imagine that it is possible to be within ten miles of your energetic presence without being acutely aware of it, you do yourself the greatest injustice. How are you? And how are your good newspaper friends? [Burge makes an explosive movement; but Lubin goes on calmly and sweetly] And what are you doing here with my old friend Barnabas, ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... as sacred, Alb has explained to us all, as a Dutchman's house; and when the loud, explosive Scotsman arrived on the gunwale, uninvited and breathing fire, the lighter's owner proceeded also to breathe fire. He swore; his Kees dog yapped; his children cried and his wife vituperated. An understudy took the helm, and before Sir Alec could jump across to another ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... ran the road, beyond a high cedar hedge. While he was speaking, the irregular explosive reports of a motor had sounded down the valley, unmistakable to those familiar with the testing of the stripped cars, and rapidly approaching. Now, as Emily would have answered, the roar suddenly changed in character, an ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... was Mrs. Kukor's grandson, the lady was Mrs. Kukor's daughter, for "Mama!" cried the young mother; and as they met just in front of Johnnie there was an explosive outburst of talk in a strange tongue, and much of what Johnnie afterwards described to Cis as "double kissin'," that is, a kissing on both cheeks, the baby coming in for his share and weeping over ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... impaled memoranda he sat back again, chewing his cigar and staring into vacancy. A full minute elapsed before he deigned to become once more aware of my presence. Then he whirled upon me to rap out an explosive question. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... perfect description of the divided will, when the higher wishes lack just that last acuteness, that touch of explosive intensity, of dynamogenic quality (to use the slang of the psychologists), that enables them to burst their shell, and make irruption efficaciously into life and quell ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park |
